


Howl

by IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5936728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow/pseuds/IFallLikeLeavesAndSnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moon is high, the air is still, and a howl rips the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howl

Shallow gasping breaths, fingers raking across his chest, beads of blood like water droplets rising from the red raw skin. Nails become razor-edged, teeth grow sharp, the moon fills the sky, and he shouts. His body screams, eyes yellow, wide and inhuman. _Pain,_ his spine arching out of its normal shape, legs popping, breaking and reforming, his skin stretching, tearing, reforming and repeating, he's hunched, his arms elongated beyond recognition, fur sprouting from him in patches of dark gray. His fingers bent and broken and bent again, forming new shapes, pads erupting from beneath previously peach skin and he howls to the full moon.

No more reason, just movement, fast, free, and hungry. The air is filled with scents, fresh and old alike. And then he's gone, and the world blurs before him. The grass bends silently beneath his paws, his form indistinct against the black background of the night. He comes over a peak and spots bright lights, fire, and he turns, heading further into the cool shade of the trees and away from the light. Another scent, cold, cool, appetizing. He lopes, a flicker of gray in the night, and the scent becomes stronger. At last he comes upon his prey.

Big, bigger then he, but not stronger. Dark green, with wings and two heads. His world blurs, and he leaps at his meal. Fur flashes, and a screech echoes in the dark. His teeth come down on scales, and the scales are tough but his teeth are sharper. The tang of copper hits his tongue as blood oozes into his mouth, and he attacks with greater fury. One head bites at him, and his fur became matted with his blood. He changes targets and leaps from the hide to a neck. His jaws came down, and snap through the bone, and the head becomes still and silent. The other shrieks, so he leaps at it. It fights back, brings its head down on his, knocks him to the ground.

He gets back up and leaps again. Again and again, one half of the body moves, and strikes at him. His claws seek purchase, find it, and when he is knocked away he rips skin and scale when he leaves. Blood flows from the creatures form, and it opens its mouth and spits sparks, but without its partner it is no match, no match at all. He moves into the shadows, and it turns its head, searching for him, but no matter how hard it looks it will not find him. He strikes, leaped from behind it, but it turns and catches him with its neck.

He retreats to the shadows, and the creature slows. It's lost a lot of blood, it will fall soon. He moves, striking again and again, tearing away until it has nothing left. It struggles feebly, futilely. At last, his teeth bite down on the neck, and with one final screech, it falls silent, and he howls once more. He tears into its form, ripping away once strong muscles, devouring the green tinted meat within. His fur is covered in blood, and the carcass still has much left to it, but he wants more than food; more prey, more meat, more _blood_. He retreats from the crimson clearing, he can smell them, all around him, hiding in the trees and the sky. He will have them all.

He moves through the trees, and he finds one, small, and he kills it. He finds another one, bigger, brown with a large tail, and he kills it too. He tears his way through the forest, until every leaf is a chiaroscuro of scarlet and green. They are gone, but he will find them, no matter how far they fly. He bounds from the forest, ready to pursue, and then he collapses. His spine shifts, and shrinks, his paws crack and split into ligaments and fingers. His fur recedes, and his eyes turned from yellow to green. Ears grow small and change position, finger nails shunting back into place with red trapped underneath them. The last bone pops into place, and where a Son of Fenrir had collapsed, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III sits up.

"Oh gods my head, what happened?" Looking over the edge of the ridge, Hiccup sees the familiar site of Berk. Then he takes a look at himself and throws up. Shaking fingers are examined by wide eyes, before they paw through his hair and pulled out a strip of scales. He looks over at the pile of bile and makes out the familiar pattern of Hideous Zippleback hide. His eyes scan over his red stained body, and notice his distinct lack of clothes. Then he throws up again. A scream erupts from somewhere behind him, probably someone checking in on the outer dragon paddocks. Hiccup rises shakily to his feet. Wordlessly, he stumbles away from the site and toward the small stream the lies just over the hill.

Sliding into the icy cold water, he ignores the burn in favor of his constantly repeating thought _what did I do? What did I do? Whatdid ido? Whatdid ido? Whatdidi do? Whatdidi do? Whatdidido? Whatdididowhatdididowhatdidido_? The only reason the stream isn't sprayed with vomit is that his stomach is already empty. Then he begins clawing at his skin, his fingernails scrapping at the blood and ichor, until he is as red and raw as the night before. Then he attacks his fingernails until the tips of every finger are bleeding. But as long as it is his blood it’s okay, as long as it isn't anyone else's he can bear it.

When his own blood has stopped flowing, and his cuts and bruises have healed themselves at a rate far beyond that of a normal human, he climbs out of the river and makes his way towards Berk. Thankfully by the time he’s made it there everyone else is up at the woods surveying the carnage. Slipping into one of his other outfits, as his traditional green shirt has probably been shredded beyond repair, his thoughts turn from _whatdidido?_ to _whatdoidonow_?

As the orange and pink light of dawn breaks over the hills above Berk, the sea catches it and shimmers; it’s going to be a beautiful day. Hiccup stares out the window at the returning people. The familiar sound of Astrid barging into his house and up his stairs startles him. No doubt she’s there to tell him about what’s happened.

His thoughts repeat again, even as a familiar blonde head comes up behind him and starts telling him everything.

_Whatdoidonow?_

He has no idea.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not remotely happy with this, but I'm trying not to ashamedly delete everything that I don't like anymore, if only so I can compare my skills before and after. So here's what I'll go ahead and call and experimental piece. Highly experimental. And also bad.


End file.
